THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: REGIONAL FALLOUT; New Hope of Syrian Minorities: Ripple Effect of Iraqi Politics

By KATHERINE ZOEPF

Published: December 29, 2004

The Iraqi election next month may be evoking skepticism in much of the world, but here in northeastern Syria, home to concentrations of several ethnic minorities, it is evoking a kind of earnest hope.

''I believe democracy in Iraq must succeed,'' Vahan Kirakos, a Syrian of Armenian ethnicity, said recently. ''Iraq is like the stone thrown into the pool.''

Though Syria's Constitution grants equal opportunity to all ethnic and religious groups in this very diverse country, minority activists say their rights are far from equal. They may not form legal political parties or publish newspapers in minority languages. More than 150,000 members of Syria's largest minority, the Kurds, are denied citizenship.

Minority issues remain one of the infamous ''red lines,'' the litany of forbidden topics that Syrians have long avoided mentioning in public.

But in the year and a half since Saddam Hussein was removed from power in Iraq, that has begun to change, with minority activists beginning to speak openly of their hopes that a ripple effect from next door may bring changes at home.

And here in Syria's far northeastern province of Hasakah, which borders Turkey and Iraq, there are signs of a new restlessness.

In March, more than 3,000 Kurds in Qamishli, a city in Hasakah Province on the Turkish border, took part in antigovernment protests, which led to clashes with Syrian security forces and more than 25 deaths.

In late October, more than 2,000 Assyrian Christians in the provincial capital, Hasakah City, held a demonstration calling for equal treatment by the local police. The demonstration, which Hasakah residents say was the first time Assyrians in Syria held a public protest, followed an episode in which two Christians were killed by Muslims who called them ''Bush supporters,'' and ''Christian dogs.''

Nimrod Sulayman, a former member of the Syrian Communist Party's central committee, said Hasakah's proximity to Iraq and demographic diversity meant that residents of the province were watching events in Iraq and taking inspiration from the freedoms being introduced there.

''This Assyrian protest in Hasakah was caused by a personal dispute, but the way the people wanted their problem solved was a result of the Iraqi impact,'' Mr. Sulayman said. ''They see that demonstrating is a civilized way to express a position.''

''Since the war in Iraq, this complex of fear has been broken, and we feel greater freedom to express ourselves,'' he added.

Mr. Sulayman noted that members of minorities in Hasakah had also been energized by a sense of brotherhood with their counterparts in Iraq.

''For example, when Massoud Barzani announced that Kurdish would be officially recognized as one of the main languages in Iraq, the Kurds in Hasakah were out in the streets celebrating, expressing their joy,'' Mr. Sulayman said, referring to the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq.

Taher Sfog, the secretary general of Syria's illegal Kurdish Democratic National Party, suggested that in some sense, Iraq and Syria were mirror images of each other, as they shared a roughly similar ethnic composition and a political heritage of Baathism, the secular Arab nationalist policy of Mr. Hussein and Bashar Assad, the Syrian president.

''Kurds in Syria feel relieved when we see Kurds in Iraq getting their rights and holding news conferences,'' Mr. Sfog said in his home in Qamishli. ''Democracy there will lead to a push in Syria, too.''

In fact, the Hussein government had long been estranged from Syria's. Before the American invasion of Iraq, many Iraqi politicians who opposed Mr. Hussein made their homes in Damascus. Basil Dahdouh, a member of the illegal Syrian Nationalist Social Party who represents Damascus in Syria's Parliament as an independent, said renewed contact with Iraq, as well as the chance to observe the changes taking place there, was leading many Syrians to actively question their own political ideals. ''The Iraq question has raised the idea of what kind of state we want,'' he said.

Emmanuel Khosaba, a spokesman for the Assyrian Democratic Movement, a political party representing Iraq's Assyrian Christian minority, said Syrian political life could not help but be influenced by Iraq.

''In Syria, gradually it's becoming safer to talk about minority rights and human rights,'' he said. But he cautioned against seeing a single ''Iraq effect'' on the very different aspirations of Syria's minorities .

''The interaction between minorities in Iraq and its neighboring countries really depends on how particular minorities view their own situation,'' Mr. Khosaba said. ''For example the Assyrians in Syria are seeking a national solution within a democratic framework, while some of the Kurds seek separation.''

Despite their sometimes startling optimism about an Iraqi democracy's longer-term prospects, the Syrian minority leaders became more sober when discussing the violence in Iraq. Not only is it painful to see Iraq convulsed with strife, they said, but instability in Iraq is causing problems closer to home.

Bachir Isaac Saadi, the chairman of the political bureau of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that throughout Syria, anger over the American presence in Iraq had set off a sharp rise in Islamist sentiment, which was creating difficulties for Syria's Christian minority.

''Christians in Syria aren't afraid of the government any longer,'' Mr. Saadi said. ''They're afraid of their neighbors.''

Though the increase in Islamist feeling is troubling, minority activists say, fear of the government and of publicly discussing minority rights has eased to a degree which would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

Mr. Kirakos, the Armenian activist, has even begun a bid for Syria's presidency, an astoundingly brazen gesture in a country where the Assad family has ruled unchallenged for more than 30 years.

The Christian Mr. Kirakos's presidential run -- which he announced in September on www.elaph.com, a pro-democracy Web site -- is illegal, as Syria's Constitution stipulates that the president must be a Muslim. But though he lost his engineering job as a result of his activism and his family has received uncomfortable phone calls from the secret police, Mr. Kirakos is unfazed.

''I carry a Syrian citizenship which is not equal to Ahmed's citizenship,'' he said, using the common Muslim name as shorthand for Syria's Sunni majority. ''It is the Syrian Constitution that must change. We should be writing a constitution that guarantees equal rights for everyone.''

Photo: Nimrod Sulayman, an ex-official of Syria's Communist Party, says minorities ''feel greater freedom to express ourselves'' since the Iraq war. (Photo by Bassem Tellawi/Associated Press, for the New York Times)

Map of Syria highlighting Qamishli: Qamishli is experiencing a new restlessness and even protests.